This is PETG, one was left out in about 40% humidity the other was dried to about 20%
As someone who happened upon this and doesn’t know anything about 3D printing, why? Does the moisture make the ink(?) print poorly?
When the filament goes through the hotend, any moisture in the filament will boil and make the filament all bubbly and not extrude well.
Do you ever mix two filaments for color fun? If so, do they have to have same moisture content
You can get multicolor filaments but probably not "mixed" in the way you're imagining, like multicolor toothpaste as soon as you start using that, it would just mush into one combined color (and you probably could've just bought a nicer version of whatever color it combined into anyway).
Instead color is usually mixed along the length of the filament, gradually shifting color as layer after layer comes out, creating a multi-color gradient effect in the print. So-called "fast change" filaments change color quite quickly, transitioning to a new color as quickly as every few layers resulting in a "striped" appearance. "Slow change" filaments change more gradually, usually resulting in at most a two-tone or three-tone gradient except across very large/tall prints.
Filament changing for multi-color prints is also an option but requires either a complex and somewhat unwieldy filament unloading, switching and feeding apparatus or a tool-switcher or dual-extruders or other similarly advanced printer features.
I have a purple blue filament that is two colors side by side. It stays 2 colors after printing. It's a different color depending on the angle you look at it.
https://store.anycubic.com/products/silk-pla-dual-tri-color-filament?currency=USD
That's wild, I'll have to give that a try. Thanks for the link.
Just to add to this, you can do poor mans multi color by just telling the printer to pause at the exact later required, then change the filament by hand, and hit resume. It's tedious, but it works, if you need it in a pinch 🤷♂️
You can also go full caveman and setup magic markers to "paint" a single color filament as it passes by heading into the extruder. I did that a time or two back in the day before multi color filaments and it works OK.
Never thought of that haha, sounds rough, but I like it
You get kind of a pastel looking results. It really wasn't worth the effort in the long run.
Yes. Stringy. Some filament types such as TPU are more sensitive to moisture. Dryers take around 7 hours to dry a role. If you had a way to know the moisture content I assume you could shorten that time. Again different filament types dry at different rates.
You can weigh it before you start drying it and weigh it again every few hours until it stops getting lighter.
I mean, it's quite obvious from the pic.
The colors are totally different.
/s
I love my printers, too, but I think it's a bit much to act like the filaments are your children.
I see a bit of under extrusion and retraction and wipe issues and possibly even coasting issues.
Remember Kiddies: Unless you are printing some of the fancy engineering filaments or you live in a rain forest, it's not always "the filament is wet." Let the filament tell you it needs to be dried. If your printer needs to have PLA and to a lessor extent PETG dried to within an inch of it's life every time to get a good clean print, then your printer calibration probably sucks. Do some filament calibration tests and get your printer right first.
But that takes learning and effort.
PLA does not need to be dried. You can dunk it in a water bath overnight and it’ll print fine in the morning.
PETG on the other hand will absorb moisture within a few days of opening, so it needs babysitting if it’s been open for more than a week.
That aside, yes, spend time to calibrate your printer before complaining about moisture.
I agree with you about PLA, I have never dried a single gram of the stuff and I've got open spools being stored on a bathroom closet shelf for several years now. I'm more worried about the spools simply aging out than moisture.
PETG is more location dependent. If you live somewhere with higher humidity levels, you will need to be more careful about storage and use. My personal habit is that I take a spool of PETG out, run a quick test print and then decide if I need to dry it or not. It's about a 50/50 thing. And for the practical things I make, a bit of stringing isn't a big deal unless I decide the aesthetics really matter.
Marketing has really sold the idea that everyone needs multiple specialized driers, (that don't really work nearly as well as a cheap food dehydrator for actual drying). And if you don't spend all that money on those things from driers to special vacuum storage bags and desiccants, you simply can't print anything.
I’ve had PLA spools go bad due to age, so I can definitely attest to them eventually crumbling out of existence, good to do the bend test if you’re not sure, if it snaps/breaks when you try and fold it in half, it’s too old and the print will come out much more brittle than you’d want it to be.
True for the location dependency, but even here with about 20-30% humidity, it’s pretty noticeable after a week, granted, that’s assuming you leave it out and open, storing in a dry box or in a vacuum sealed bag with a desiccant between prints will help prolong that period immensely in my experience.
Marketing definitely has had quite a creeping presence into 3D printing in recent years, and similarly to gaming, it seems to be targeting the enthusiast class, so trying to convince people to try printing with more fancy (and toxic, and hydrophobic) materials than just the standard run of the mill PLA and PETG and upsell them on all the accessories before they’re actually needed.
Makes you wonder how much of all of this is gonna end up in the dumpster or in the attic at some point
I know. As an old toolmaker that managed a few shop floors, inventory management is something I practice with a vengeance.
Is the one on the left the dried one?
Yes
Looks hardly better though…
Yup, the humidity on it is better but could be dryer.
The difference is astounding
/s
Is the one in the middle the dried one?
Weird. I've never dried my filament and never have this issue.
It's PETG and I've moved to a very wet environment. Stringing and popping and a big issue here. My last place though was a lot dryer and didn't need this solution.
It also depends how humid it is where you live.
Maybe it has someþing to do wiþ þe fact þat you live in Death Valley
Is the one on the right the dried one?
No
At first I thought it was a pretty glitter green and then I zoomed in. Oof
I strongly recommend printing out of a sealed dry box as well. There are lots of good designs based around cereal containers and molecular sieves. For extremely hygroscopic filaments like PET-CF, this is the only way I've been able to get good prints.
They are, Polydry box
Crazy how much humidity changes the color
Anyone tried one of those AMS filament driers that sits atop the AMS? It’s really humid where my printer is and difficult to keep stored filament dry.
Will someone divulge their drying technique pls.
I use a food dehydrator for most filaments (50-60°C for PETG, 40-45°C for PLA). Works great and cheaper than dedicated filament dryers. For storage, airtight containers with dessicant packets keep things dry. You can also check out portable power stations on gearscouts.com if you need to run your dryer in places without easy outlet access - some printers draw a lot of power during long prints.
Air fryer at lowest setting, like 150. Then store it in a sealed bag with a dessicant pack.
Mine is just Polydryer. Keep the box low humidity keep the filament low humidity.
Need more testing to see how well this works though since swapping filament in these boxes is inefficient and the beads quickly get used before you need to reset them.
Only do this if you have money to burn, or you are doing 3d printing as a business and at scale
Secondhand food dehydrator.
Much cheaper and works perfectly fine.
I have a dedicated box with a heated carpet for reptiles that can regulate temp between 25-60 C, two 12v coolers and two boxes with silicagel, this one runs constantly. If there is a need to dry multiple spools - oven at 50 C for 4-5 hours. That's my setup for petg.
Place the spool on the bed set to 60-80°C, then put an empty filament box that's missing the bottom side (when flat) on top of it. Place silica, make some holes on the top side. Some youtuber made tests and this method lands pretty nicely in between low-end and high-end dedicated dryers
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